


stay warm

by sunshineflying



Series: Reylo Tumblr Prompts [16]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 08:18:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14280819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunshineflying/pseuds/sunshineflying
Summary: Written for a prompt on Tumblr. Also in the same verse as All That I Have but it's not necessary you read that first.Rey has plans with Finn and Poe, leaving Ben in charge of giving their four month old daughter a bath, and caring for her by himself.





	stay warm

“Ben?” Rey calls out across their small cottage. The best part about this place was that if they needed each other, they could probably shout and be heard from anywhere. Like now, when Rey needed to ask Ben for help so she could go meet up with Finn and Poe. 

“Yeah?” he asks, wandering out of the kitchen, drying his hands off on a towel.

Rey’s heart thuds in her chest; she’s still not used to the domesticity they have now. Nor is she used to the sight of Ben in black trousers and a short sleeved shirt, some stains on the shoulder where Padmé probably spit up her breakfast that morning. She’s four months old and getting stronger every day, and finds a way to leave her mark wherever she goes.

He tucks the towel in his back pocket as Rey holds out Padmé to him. Padmé’s big eyes watch her mom and dad with quiet curiosity. “I’m supposed to go to lunch with Finn and Poe today, remember?” Rey says, a bit frantically.

“I do,” Ben nods. “Do you?”

Rey looks harassed. “I’ve been so tired I lost track of the days,” she confesses. “I thought today was yesterday, so I wasn’t supposed to see them until tomorrow, and now…”

Ben swallows; he’s still not entirely confident that he can care for their baby alone, but now is his chance to really try. It’s only for a few hours. “Padmé and I will be fine. It’s almost time for her nap, anyway,” he tells Rey in a bid to calm her down.

He can sense Rey’s hurry, how she feels frantic and a little stressed. Ben rests his free hand on Rey’s shoulder, cradling Padmé in his other arm. Rey stills. She looks up at Ben, and then over at Padmé. “Go get changed. They’ll understand if you’re a few minutes late,” Ben says.

They probably will, at least. Ben still doesn’t know them all that well, aside from the few times they’ve come to visit Rey and Padmé. Both men were civil to him then. And if they can be civil to him for the sake of the baby, they’ll very likely be understanding of Rey’s tardiness.

“I’ll be back in a few hours,” she tells him.

Ben kisses her forehead, a gesture that’s become so familiar to him; he kisses both of them on the forehead, usually to calm them down. It works on both of them, and that’s one of the many beautiful traits Padmé seems to have inherited from her mother, thank the maker.

“Okay,” Rey nods. She looks up at Ben, her brow furrowed in slight worry. “I meant to give her a bath this morning. She spit up all over everything. She’s been doing that all morning. I…”

Ben rests his bare, calloused hand on Rey’s cheek. “Baths I can do,” he says, amusement sparkling in his eyes. The corner of his mouth even turns up in the faintest hint of a smile. “You know this. Remember?”

Rey’s whole expression softens; he watches the stress fade from her shoulders. He’d helped her bathe when she was pregnant and sore; it was the most tender thing he knew how to do, truly. “Go,” he insists. “Padmé and I are just fine, and if I need anything, I’ll call my mom.”

He’s gotten better about that, too - reaching out to Leia when he or Rey or both of them need help with something. That seems to do the trick, because after that, Rey relaxes and doesn’t hesitate to change clothes and leave the cottage. The whole time, Ben sits calmly in the rocking chair, Padmé snuggled against his chest. His mother has warned him many times to treasure this, because these moments will quickly become a rarity, something he’ll yearn for even in just a year.

He tries not to think about why she knows this, when he stopped giving her this small comfort that he draws from his daughter every day.

Padmé stirs after about an hour, kicking her chubby little limbs, making herself known once more. Ben could never forget her, of course, but sometimes she likes to cause a little spectacle, just for attention. It’s rather endearing to him.

“Bath time,” he says, carrying her into the kitchen. 

When his mother first showed him how to bathe a baby - that he should use a sink, especially as tall as he is - he’d scoffed. Bathing a baby in a sink is so undignified. 

Leia tells him he used to get baths in the tiny sink on the Falcon, and that shuts him right up.

Ben cradles Padmé in one arm and carefully gathers what he’ll need. He runs the water at an acceptable temperature, testing it more than is entirely necessary to make sure it’s not too warm for her. They keep a basket in the kitchen now, at Leia’s suggestion, full of towels and cloths and soaps for washing up Padmé. Under the sink they have a little seat they can put in the water to hold her upright before she can do it on her own.

It takes him a few moments, but Ben feels a small sense of accomplishment as he puts Padmé in the soapy water. 

She loves baths, splashes around in the water like she was born for it. When they’d discovered this, it had stirred something in Rey, something emotional that she couldn’t put into words. Ben didn’t ask. He knew where she came from, and he could make his own assumptions. Padmé always smiled when she was in the water, always flailed her little arms and made a big mess for such a tiny person.

Ben smiles at her, splays his large hand across her entire torso as he washes her gently. The soap smells faintly of flowers he remembers from his childhood, from a field he used to play in whenever his family would travel to Yavin. Now, the scent only reminds him of Padmé. It likely always will. He washes her back, and then her front, and the entire time Padmé just smiles and gurgles and flails her tiny fists. 

He’s especially gentle as he scrubs shampoo into her soft dark tufts of hair. Ben is curious whether her hair will stay dark, like his, or lighten over time to look more like Rey’s. The likenesses she has to the two of them astonish him; he feels like he notices something new every day in the shape of her eyes or the expression on her face. Sometimes he sees Rey, but sometimes he sees himself. And when he sees himself, it’s hard for him to accept sometimes that he’s passed something in himself off to someone else. Fear still lingers within him, that the worst parts of him will manifest in their child, will bring darkness back to the galaxy.

That’s usually when Rey reminds him that things are different this time. That Padmé has the two of them, has all of their friends, has  _ Leia _ , and that circumstances are everything.

Ben very carefully pours water atop her sudsy curls, trying to wash out the shampoo without streaking too much water on her face, but it’s inevitable and oddly, she seems to like it. Padmé squeals and smiles at him, smacking her lips when water dribbles down her chubby cheeks. She blinks open her eyes, looks up at him with lashes that are long and dark and  _ beautiful _ , and he relaxes. 

She trusts him. She loves him. Padmé gives Ben an unconditional love and trust that he still cannot fathom. 

When he pulls her from the bath water, he dries her off in the towel, draping one corner over her head to keep her warm. He wraps her in a diaper - because he’d learned the hard way that if he doesn’t, she’ll make a mess down his shirt - and then snuggles her back up in the towel. Ben holds her to his chest as she tries off, letting his heat keep her warm. She snuggles up to him after baths, though usually Rey is the one to bathe her. Ben’s warmer than Rey, which Padmé learned early on. Daddy is the one she’ll go to for warmth, for comfort, now and forever.

After a few moments, Padmé squirms and makes an unhappy noise. Glancing to the clock, Ben registers that she’s probably hungry again. “Shh, Padmé, it’s alright,” Ben whispers as he lays her down on his bed. He’s already got a sleeper for her - one of this own, from his childhood - and snuggles her into it easily. When she was first born, Ben had struggled with dressing Padmé, her little limbs always too wild and flingy to really make changing her easy. He’d been worried that he’d hurt her, until he’d learned that he couldn’t - it was near impossible. “There we go,” he whispers once she’s dressed. He swaddles her in a blanket and brings her back to his chest - her warmth and comfort. Padmé grumbles.

Ben wanders to the kitchen where, blessedly, Rey has left some bottles in the fridge. She’d been intent on breastfeeding and Ben had no objection. It was what mothers did, or so he’d been told. And thankfully, she’d planned ahead and pumped, leaving some bottles for Ben to feed Padmé with while she was away. 

When the bottle is warmed and ready, Ben sits back in the rocking chair. Padmé contentedly suckles at the bottle, her little hand grasping one of his fingers with astonishing strength. She eats like Rey - gulping,  _ inhaling _ , like every meal is her last, like it could be taken from her at any moment - and Ben’s heart twists just a little. It always does. She’ll never know that kind of hunger or fear.  _ Ever _ . Not if he has anything to say about it.

Ben sets aside the bottle once it’s empty and brings Padmé upright, resting her chin near his shoulder. He pats her back and wonders how this became his life. How somehow, the darkest moments of his life paved the way for the best and brightest. How he went from so much pain and anguish and destruction to the epitome of a loving, doting father. Padmé burps once, and then twice, and then her head starts to slump. She’s ready to sleep.

Cradling her in his arms once more, Ben watches his daughter and rocks the chair slowly. He hums a little lullaby, one he remembers from his childhood - or maybe the cockpit of the Falcon, he’s not sure, because it all blurs together now - the dulcet tones of his voice lulling Padmé into a deep, comfortable sleep.


End file.
